With a tip of the hat to Lifehacker: "Perfecting your morning means an improved outlook and enhanced energy for the day....

So, since you're all a bunch of productive [Train(eo)ers] why don't you share your perfect morning ritual? Remember, it doesn't have to be what you currently do; just let us know what kind of (realistic) morning would give you the best positive start to the day. Bounce some ideas around, and maybe you'll get your perfect morning all sussed out."

-----

-Wake up @ 4:45 ('though I've been rising earlier, recently)
-Make a cup (or more) of black coffee in my French press.
-Launch a stream of New Age or Classical music onLast.fm or iTunes.
-Reply to e-mail and read, respond to and post entries on the social networking sites with which I'm involved.
-Catch up on daily finances and plan my workday.
-Start my workout @ home between 6:15 and 6:45.
-Take a piping hot shower followed by a burst of cold water (gets the blood flowing!)
-Eat breakfast (7-grain cereal, fruit and a piece of cheese).
-Join the working world.

What works for you?

-Awake @ 5:00am
-at the gym at 5:30
-workout until 7:00
-shower at the gym, or go home and get ready (i live 2 mins from gym, depends on the day)
-leave at 7:30
-at work at 8:00

I wake up around 6 am. Have a cup of strong indian filter coffe.

Get breakfast ready for the family, send the daughter off to school and start my morning workout around 7:30.

Then a hot shower and a healthy breakfast.
The parts of my morning that I love? ....... the coffee time and the workout.

I have no rituals. Every day is different. I eat, sleep, wake, work, workout, recreate to no specific schedule. I love living this way. I have done both (the routine driven life and this). But this suits me better.

The only fantasy I have is waking up early every day and practicing yoga outdoors. Say on my terrace, on the beach or in a garden, or near a waterfall. In this fantasy I am very good at yoga. The asanas flow effortlessly. I practice with body and mind. I do not use an ipod, but music plays from Jai Uttal. I wear Indian clothing. White. A bindi on my forehead. My favorite yoginis and yogis similarly dressed practice with me sometimes. (No bindis on the men). I have a halo. A peaceful smile. And a flat stomach.

@Vrinda: I think a stint as an instructor at one of Club Med's "Rejuvenation for the Soul"-themed resorts is in your future!

Vrinda, I think your fantasy is great. I think my fiancee would like that too.

Here's my usual routine:

-Wake up @ 5:30
-Put the dogs outside
-Make a half pot of coffee (some for the morning, some to bring to work)
-Have breakfast (cereal or oatmeal)
-Read the newspaper (yes, the good old-fashioned newspaper)
-Wake up my wife @ 6:30
-At work by 7

As a side note, I always take a shower the night before. I have found that taking a nice hot shower at night knocks me out, and I rarely have a hard time falling asleep.

Thanks guys, good topic, putting a list of morning goalies together for myself to work on. So far:

- zazen/yoga
- first breakfast (coffee/tea,cereal)
- workout (jog in park or other)
- shower and shave
- second breakfast (eggies, tortillas, gorillas, whatever)
- go over todo list etc. and onto the rest of the day

somewhere in there goes
- write (email/forums/blogs)

-wake @ 6
-30 minutes on my gazelle and then 10 minutes of pilates/stretching
-let the dog out
-wash face
-breakfast of cereal, baked apples or eggs
-go to work

that's it.

- wake @ 0600
- @ gym by 0630
- make breakfast & iron shirt
- do one household chore (clean/vacuum/snowblow driveway)
- @ work by 0845

Wake around 7.
Drink a glass of water.
Check the weather & comics on the web.
Put on the tea kettle.
Do my ab routine.
Make tea, breakfast, and pack my lunch.
Shower & get dressed.
Eat breakfast and catch up on the news.
Help my 7-year-old with his math.
Make cocoa & breakfast for the kids.
Leave for work or start working from home.

When I've actually got the time/motivation to wake up early:

Wake: 6 AM, get dressed, forget the shower for now
Laps: At the pool, which is located about ~1 minute walk from my apartment. Which is why I love living on university residence.
Head back home at about 7 - 7:15. Quick shower, brush my teeth, grab a quick bite to eat and some coffee
Class at 8

Thank you Nathan. Say hello to your fiancee from me. I will save a place for "Nathan's fiancee" in my next yoga fantasy.

God I feel lazy! Here's how my morning goes.

Part 1. Trying to wake up
---------------------------
- Get woken up by alarm at 5:10. Press snooze button on alarm
- Get woken up by husband at 5:18. Don't wake up. Husband goes back to whatever work strange early-risers do in the morning.
- Get woken up by alarm again. Press snooze button again.
....and so on, until I finally wake up when exasperated husband gets me coffee and one biscuit at 5:45.

Part 2. The productive bit
---------------------------
- 6:00 to 6:15 Stretching exercises at home before leaving for the park
- 6:15 to 7:00-ish Running
- A few minutes of stretching again
....and then back to home. I have my breakfast, bath and then rush off to work. I'm always late!

Mornings are *not* my peak time! The only reason I've been able to start exercising in the morning is because my (very fit) husband is helping me.

Vrinda, my only fantasy is to sleep in!

LOL.. I hear ya..

Suchi, Sleep in is what I do.

hehe, Chelsea is her name, so you don't have to call her "Nathan's fiancee."

You are lucky Nathan. And so is she!

I'm going to show her this post, show her she's in your fantasies, she won't believe me if I told her...hahaha!

Thanks Vrinda.

So - what time do all you people who get up at 6am and before go to bed?

I typically exist on somewhere between 4 and 6 hours sleep a night, but regardless of how much/little sleep I have, I can never get up before 7 or so, unless there's a reason to do so (travel etc.)

Max

Yoga fantasy Nathan. You will remember to say Yoga, won't you? Or she may run when she sees me coming at traineo.

Maxwell, what is your morning ritual after you wake up at 7 or later?

I'm in bed around 9:30, but I normally don't fall asleep for a while.

So I get no less than 6 hours of sleep (I won't let myself). I'll skip a morning workout to get enough sleep and then just workout in the afternoon, or move my rest day.

On average about 7 hours a night. Every once in a while when my body says enough is enough and I fall asleep at 8pm I get a solid 9. Every so often you need that

Chelsea is on Traineo if you want to find her...She just joined and hasn't updated much though, maybe you can get her involved.

What a nice idea!

Hmm generally I get to bed soemtimes between 10 and 12
-I wake up between 7-8
-Have a drink of juice or water (I don't drink coffee!)(Rarely I will have some herbal tea though)
-Make Breakfast; Bacon, eggs and toast for husband. Cereal with yogurt and sometimes fruit for myself. Sometimes I'll make an omelette for both of us too.
-Check Email and such.
-Work out for about an hour sometime between 9 and 11. (Have a small gym inside our apartment building!)
-Hot Shower

That pretty much follows what I did today.
Sometimes I will have brakfast after my work out and shower..

The snooze button and I are best friends. I actually snooze for about an hour most morning. (My snooze is set for every 3 minutes) So, while I have aspirations of being up by 6, it doesn't happen very often. So, here is my honest morning ritual.

-First Alarm 6:00am
-Second Alarm 6:15am
-Snooze till 7:00
-Shower and get ready-7:10am
-Take my dog out-7:25
-Grab a granola bar and a bottle of water-7:36
-Drive to the train-7:41
-Ride the train into the city and eat-8:01am
-Walk to work- 8:37
-Arrive at work almost awake to be a functional member of the corporate world. - 9:00am

On the random chance I am up to work out, I'll take my dog for a run. But otherwise my office has a gym that I take classes at around lunch.

My mornings are always too rushed.

How do you all get up so early!??

My morning ritual...

I usually get to bed at some time between 2 and 5 am, and rise between 8 and 10 am, depending on when I went to bed - there's generally a lot of snooze button slapping going on, as my alarm is set for 8, always.

Get up, shower, scrub, and aim to be in the office within 30 mins of rising.

Breakfast tends not to happen until I'm at work, at which point it'll probably consist of an espresso and a cup of tea.

Not much of a ritual, and not much of a fitness/health model - I know what I should be doing differently, and I used to have a pretty rigid and healthy ritual, but at this point in time none of it is particularly compatible with my work-to-the-bone lifestyle.

Snooze buttons are interesting. Typically they have a 9 minute duration - this was originally due to the fact that due to the gear ratios in windup clocks they could either have had a 9 minute snooze or a 12 minutes snooze, and it was decided that a 9 minute snooze was more marketable. Later, with the advent of the digital clock, the nine minutes remained as it meant the circuitry only had to watch the final digit on the clock, rather than both minute digits - this resulted in a lower cost of manufacture.

Potted random fact history lesson over.

Maxwell,

I like pointless, random facts. Useful conversation fillers when the conversation threatens to dwindle to to an awkward pause. Although the bit about circuitry is a bit head-spinning - in a digital clock - wouldnt that be handled with embedded software? Will be interesting to repeat the story and see if anyone else has the same confusion as me.

Keeping traineo up and running for us seems like really hard work. I hope things ease up soon so that you get to post here about fitness exploits.

Both of my parents were early risers. I remember coming down to breakfast at 7 A.M. and greeting my father, who was relaxing with a coffee and cigarette. My mother would wake us up early on Saturday and present us with a "chore list" for the morning. Believe it or not, I'm neither Amish nor Catholic.

In the early 80s, I dated a woman who had been on Harvard's swim team and was used to double practices (morning and evening). She introduced me to early-morning running, an activity I pursued for another 10+ years.

Today, I have an internal alarm clock (probably fueled by too much black coffee) and two cats that wake me around 4:30-4:45. The proximity of my PC (I sleep in a studio apartment) and international online friendships sometimes prompt me to rise even earlier.

All of this explains why I doze after taking my seat on the subway.

Duly submitted for your consideration at 4:38 EST.

Nope, talking about way before embedded software and ICs - talking about digital displays powered by messes of transistors & logic gates, where having a few less logic pathways represented a significant cost & complexity saving.



Cats are great for early morning wakeups, due to their crepuscular nature - they sit on your chest and swat at your face until you get up and feed them or let them out or whatever whim it is they've decided on today - unfortunately I tend to nod off again after letting her out, however.

Crepuscular: occurring or active during twilight . Not only did I get a workout in this morning, but I enriched my vocabulary. The hidden benefits of Traineo! Thanks, Max!


Unfortunately, 'oshi does more than sit on my gf's and my chests. She'll sit on the kitchen counter, knocking stuff into the sink or onto the floor, until I feed her. And this occurs at 3, 5 & 8 A.M. and 6 & 10 at night.

And I thought it was me who was supposed to be using Pavlovian conditioning!